Let the Rain
by LGCoffeeAddict
Summary: "You had two guns pointed at your head today, El," she whispered. Her voice still had that same hoarse, thready sound that it did in the hospital. It made him want to just wrap her up in his arms and keep anything bad from ever happening to her again. "I just need some time to reassure myself that I didn't pull that trigger, that Gitano didn't."


Let the Rain

A **Law & Order: SVU** fic by Gigi

**A/N: I haven't been able to get this idea out of my head, so I'm just going to write it. Because Fault gives me all the painful, delicious feels, and I needed to really write about it. I hope you enjoy it! This is for Morgan, a lovely friend I've had since I was 12 and whose birthday it was two days ago. Without her, I never would have discovered the magic that is SVU, so happy 21****st****, love!**

_We both chose each other over the job._ _That can't happen again._

Olivia felt beyond numb, sitting in that hallway. Numb was a feeling she knew well, and this wasn't it. It was like every nerve ending, emotional and physical, had not only stopped working, but had altogether left her body. It was a miracle she was even breathing as she recalled how many times the man sitting beside her had torn her to shreds in just one day.

That gun up against his head, the way he'd already given up on life, the way he wanted _her_ to be the one to kill him. The second they'd reached the hospital with Rebecca, Olivia made a beeline for the ladies' room and violently threw up in the nearest toilet. Twice. Every fiber of her being rejected any possibility of losing Elliot, and Gitano had come terrifyingly close to making that a reality.

Then Elliot had the gall to think she could handle the responsibility of making the "right" decision if there ever was a next time. They were told time and time again that, if the choice was to save a member of the public or to save your partner, always choose the member of the public. That was the right decision, but Olivia's insides rebelled against that. The decision that ended Elliot's life was never, _ever_ going to be the right one.

_You and the job are about the only things I have left. I don't wanna wreck that. I couldn't take it._

Neither could _she_! Olivia stewed in that seat in the hallway long after Elliot left her alone. She couldn't take that loss either, and he fully expected her to if it came to that. He expected her to put the job over him next time. He refused to accept the fact that she would do the _exact_ same thing again and again. She would always, always choose Elliot over the job. She could survive without the job, even if it would be the hardest thing she'd have to do. But the second Elliot died would be the second she did.

She hated herself for that. She _despised_ herself for being so desperately dependent on her partner that though every instinct inside her screamed to run away and get some distance, she steadfastly ignored those instincts and stayed glued to his infuriating, stubborn, rage-prone side. She was supposed to be smarter than that. She was so good about keeping her distance from everyone else in her life. What the fuck was wrong with her that she couldn't do that for Elliot?

She slammed her eyes shut, just trying to force oxygen into her lungs. She needed to stop shaking, but she hadn't been able to stay still since she heard the gun go off in that warehouse. Behind her eyelids the entire scene played out in sickening detail. He was so close to not breathing anymore, and she'd even told Gitano he could kill her, too.

Clawing her way out of the memory, Olivia opened her eyes and realized her knuckles were white from the vice-like grip she had on the edge of her chair. They should be hurting, but no sensation whatsoever registered in her mind. It took a conscious effort to uncurl her fingers, one by one, and move them into her lap.

Elliot didn't die. But she felt like she already has.

**xoxoxo**

It had started raining since she'd been in the hospital. She walked right past the parking lot, not trusting herself to drive when she couldn't even have the presence of mind to zip up her coat. Her apartment was only twenty blocks away anyway. She could walk that.

Elliot's was only ten blocks away in the opposite direction though.

That thought was the first thing that made her feel anything in hours. She felt need. Just to see him, to watch him breathe, to make sure he was alive. Without a second thought, Olivia turned the corner that would take her by his favorite Chinese takeout.

By the time she stood on the steps to his building, she was completely soaked through, but she'd kept the food protected as much as she could. For some reason, keeping that food warm and dry was of the highest importance right then. As long as she could feel the warmth permeating through the bag and her wet shirt on her stomach, she could feel _something_.

The second Elliot opened the door, she could finally feel the air in her lungs. She could feel the water dripping down her neck and the hair stuck on her face. She could feel the way her heart both calmed down and started slamming violently against her ribcage.

"Liv, what are you doing here?" Elliot sounded tired, hoarse, and his face was pale, eyes sunken in. He'd probably thrown up, too.

She let go of her jacket and let the food come into view. "Thought you could use some food." Her voice sounded like his. "Can I come in?"

**xoxoxo**

Elliot could barely register Olivia's presence in the hallway outside his door. His head just wouldn't compute why she was still trying to take care of him when he'd put her through so much in the last week. Hell, in the last two years. Her eyes were black and shining with moisture, more vulnerable than he'd ever seen them as she stood there waiting for his answer.

He stepped to the side, unblinking as she ducked her head and walked past him into his apartment. "You're soaking wet," he observed. It looked like she hadn't even made any effort to keep herself dry.

"Didn't feel like driving," she answered softly. She placed the bag of food on his counter and shrugged out of her jacket before she floundered for a place to put it that wouldn't get water all over his apartment.

Every inch of her clothing was completely soaked, and he could see the shivering as the cold finally settled over her. "There's some sweats in the top drawer of my dresser." He prodded her in the direction of her room, taking her jacket from her hands in the process. "Go change and throw your clothes in the drier. I'll get the food out."

Five minutes later, they were sitting on the barstools at his counter and picking at their food, the only sound in the apartment the rhythmic tumble of the drier. Olivia was almost drowning in his NYPD sweatshirt and had to roll up his sweatpants a few times so that she could walk without tripping, but she looked warmer. Every time he sneaked a glance at her from the corner of his eye, he felt a little warmer himself. It was comforting having her with him, seeing her wearing his sweatshirt. "Liv," he started, staring into his food. "Why did you come here?"

She didn't look up from her food either, but she lowered her hands into her lap as if she could contain whatever she was feeling if only she tried hard enough. It took her a few seconds to speak, but Elliot didn't push her. "You had two guns pointed at your head today, El," she whispered. Her voice still had that same hoarse, thready sound that it did in the hospital. It made him want to just wrap her up in his arms and keep anything bad from ever happening to her again. It was an instinct as powerful as any he had toward protecting his children but on a wholly different level. "I just need some time to reassure myself that I didn't pull that trigger, that Gitano didn't." Elliot finally turned his head fully to see Olivia hunched over and trying to breathe normally. "I needed to know you were still here."

"I'm still here, Liv." His eyes burned but he couldn't blink, couldn't for even a fraction of a second lose sight of his partner. Suddenly, he was right where she was, where he needed to see her breathing just to know she wasn't still lying on the floor of the bus terminal.

Olivia nodded just barely before she straightened with a shake of her head. He could practically hear her berating herself for indulging her insecurities. "I'll be out of your hair once my clothes are dry," she promised and picked up her fork again. She tucked her hair behind her ear and tried to ignore it when his gaze fell to the bandage on her neck, but by the way she blinked blindly at her food instead of eating it he could tell she knew what he was looking at. "I'll be fine, El."

She wanted him to stop watching her. He knew that as firmly as he knew he wouldn't stop as long as he was still alive. He marveled at how differently they'd handled the possibility of losing each other. He'd reacted by getting angry with her for making his heart stop when she fell and her head bounced. He'd lashed out and blamed her for making him feel like the world just came crashing down around him. And she'd reacted by bringing him food just so that she could see him still standing.

His hand moved of its own accord, but when his fingertips brushed across the cut on her neck he felt like he'd stopped breathing. Judging from the sudden tension in Olivia's neck, she had, too. "I thought I was too late," he rasped.

"It's just a scratch, El," Olivia dismissed. For as much as she fussed over him, she never let him worry about her for long. He knew the next words out of her mouth before she even started saying them. "How's your head?"

Elliot let his hand weave into her hair, feeling her scalp for the bump he knew would be there. "Probably about the same as yours. Did you even let them check for a concussion?"

His hands found the bump, and a hiss fell past Olivia's lips without her approval. "What was the point? I wasn't going to be sleeping anytime soon anyway."

Anger bubbled up inside him. He gently turned her head toward his, making her look him in the eyes. "Don't do that," he said fiercely. His hand fell to the side of her neck, his thumb resting on her jaw line. "Don't dismiss yourself so easily. You were just as much at risk this case as I was, and you don't even seem to care. I swear to God, Olivia, if you won't take care of yourself then at least let me fucking do it."

Olivia's dark eyes widened with every word he said, genuine surprise all over her features. He hated how surprised she was that someone was as invested in her wellbeing as she was in his. He hated that she didn't know in her bones that he'd lose whatever shred of sanity he still had if anything happened to her. But a lifetime of building walls and living behind self-imposed boundaries cultivated instincts stronger than steel. "I don't need anyone to take care of me," she insisted almost out of reflex.

"Bullshit," he spat. "You just don't want to admit it." He stood up off the barstool and crowded her as much as he could short of sitting in her lap. "However much you want to make sure I'm still alive, that's how much I need to know you are, too. Hell, I let a _kid_ get killed because I was scared out of my mind that you'd bleed out right in front of me. How do you not get that?"

She was shaking again. Goosebumps bloomed under his fingers, and Elliot watched her eyes dart back and forth over his face, wanting to run but glued to the seat. His thumb started stroking her jaw, trying to soothe the bumps down to no avail. If anything, the trembling seemed to get worse. "And then you tried to tell me it was a mistake," she finally exhaled. Tears pooled in her gaze, threatening to spill over onto his thumb. "You _regretted_ saving me. You called me incompetent, and you stared me straight in the eyes and told me to pull that trigger." Her chest heaved and the tears won. Steady streams tracked down her cheeks and neck, wetting his hand. She was disintegrating right in front of him, and he could do nothing but watch the destruction. Her voice got higher, louder as she finally voiced her biggest fear. "You didn't even _think_ about me, Elliot. What about me? _What about me?_"

Elliot froze. She'd asked that in the hospital, and he hadn't answered. He'd just told her she couldn't do it again. "Liv…" he started, but now that he'd finally gotten her going there was little he could do to stop her confessions.

"What the hell did you think I was going to do, Elliot?" She stood up, too, basically eliminating any whisper of space between their bodies. His hand, still moist from her tears, fell away from her neck. "Did you think that I'd survive that? That I wouldn't go home and want to eat my own gun because I'd caused your death?" Her words punched him in the gut. He'd been so focused on his own pain that he didn't stop to think she'd felt the same way he did. "Fuck you, Elliot." She was beating on his chest now, half-hearted punches that bounced right off but he let her do it. "_Fuck you_ for making me need you this much and then expecting me to put a bullet in your head."

He finally caught her hands and tugged her into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her shaking body and let her cry into his shoulder. Every tear he felt on his neck felt like a knife in his heart. "I'm so sorry, Liv," he breathed into her hair. "I'm so, so sorry."

He held her for what could have been hours or minutes. But slowly, she let him absorb just a little of her pain, take on at least some of her burden. She let him be the one who held her up, just this once. Her crying stopped gradually, and her breathing had returned to normal as she dug her face into the dip between his neck and his shoulder. The embrace turned from something akin to an apology to something so deeply comforting it bordered on intimate, even sacred. The silence that surrounded them now was calmer, because words wouldn't do what they felt justice. It no longer pressed down on them because they were too afraid their words would shatter something very, very fragile.

"Thank you for being alive," she sighed into his neck. Her arms still trembled a little, but they wrapped around his back and clutched at his shirt like it was a lifeline.

Elliot's throat closed up with the admission that suddenly fought to come out, the admission that went against all his training as a cop, but she was being so open with him. For the first time in what seemed like too long, they were actually _talking_ instead of tiptoeing around each other until he inevitably exploded at her over nothing. She deserved to hear the words that validated her choices today. She deserved to know he was grateful, selfish as he was for being so. "Thank you for not taking the shot."

Olivia swallowed a giant gulp of air and burrowed into his chest like she was trying to crawl right into his skin. He would have let her, given half a chance. But the moment came to a grinding halt when his stomach let out an obnoxiously loud rumble, which Olivia probably felt against her stomach as much as heard it.

The smallest of laughs bubbled out of her as she pulled back to look into his face. Her lips quirked upwards when she took in the embarrassment reddening his cheeks. "I guess that means we should eat before the food gets cold."

**xoxoxo**

Olivia had her appetite back. Once she'd gotten everything that was killing her out of her body and into the open, she felt emptiness only food could fill. She was feeling the things a normal person who was blessedly alive person would feel: her body's demands and the need to satisfy them.

Unfortunately, she mused as she lifted her chicken-laden fork to her mouth, thinking about her body's demands sent her down an entirely different road. One that made her all too conscious of her partner, the one who kept—quite intentionally—bumping elbows with her as he dug into his food. They weren't really talking all that much, but every time he knocked into her, their eyes met just for a second. Those were their conversations, his eyes twinkling and hers rolling at his boyishness. It was comfortable. Wonderfully comfortable.

Until the drier buzzed and effectively broke the spell that had fallen over them. Olivia didn't want her clothes back yet. In fact, part of her wanted to vehemently protest that the drier must be broken because there was no way her clothes would dry that quickly. The idea of going back to her empty, dark apartment made her feel almost as sick as she'd been in the hospital. Her stomach already threatened to reject the food she'd managed to eat thinking about being unable to just look to her left and remind herself that Elliot was still alive.

And once again, she was back in that warehouse, staring Elliot in the eye as he begged, _demanded_ her to take the shot. The numbness—the nervelessness—began creeping in again and she dropped her fork. She couldn't get back into those clothes, not now. She could _feel_ again, and why the hell should she give up feeling just because those damned clothes that had seen her absolute worst moment in her adult life were dry?

"Liv, Liv," Elliot's concerned voice broke through her panicked haze. Her eyes darted up and began to focus on the intensity of his gaze. "You gotta calm down, Liv. You'll make yourself pass out."

She was hyperventilating. Funny, she hadn't even noticed. She still couldn't really tell; her lungs had already gone numb again. But _that_ scared her. She wasn't even back in her clothes yet, and the life was already leaving her body. "I can't leave yet, El," she almost pleaded. "The second I do, I'm going to keep feeling like you're actually on a slab somewhere, and you won't be right next to me to prove me wrong."

Recognition and something else dawned on Elliot's face, and he quickly shook his head. "I don't want you to leave yet, either. Those clothes can stay right where they are until you're ready."

He offered her his hand to squeeze to physically remind her of his warmth. She squeezed for her life, but it wasn't enough. His hand wasn't enough. It _wasn't_. She looked back up at him, desperate for anything else that could make her body understand he was _there_. "El…" her voice cracked.

She finally realized what else she'd seen in his features. It was commiseration. The same panic that gripped her tightened the skin around his eyes. His other hand rubbed up and down her arm, bringing that section back to the living, raising goosebumps hidden by the sleeves of the sweatshirt.

There was no way to tell who had moved first, who had taken that first step off the barstool and tugged the other one toward them. They always moved in sync with each other, and this was no different.

Except it was _so_ different.

Olivia felt everything at once, her body thrumming back to life as it crashed into Elliot's. He slanted his mouth over hers, and the clatter behind her told her she'd knocked over her barstool in her eagerness to pull him closer. Her lungs burned and her heart pounded out a harsh rhythm in counterpoint to the beating she felt building in her abdomen. One of Elliot's hands wove back into her hair and anchored her to him—like she was going anywhere. She felt the way he was careful of the bump on the back of her head, felt his other arm snake around to her back and slip under the sweatshirt.

That touch seared her to the bone, just like his kiss was doing to her brain. The one thing she felt most of all was out of control. She couldn't handle the overload of her senses, but she'd die in the most exquisite torture imaginable. Because that's what his lips, his tongue, even his teeth every once in a while were. His tongue explored her mouth with a reverence she'd only associate with this man when he was in church, coaxing the embarrassingly breathy moan from her throat that made him grip her to him even harder.

_This_ was knowing he was alive. _This_ was reminding her that she was, too. With every brush of his lips or tug of his hands, her panic receded. His warmth was the best kind of reassurance that existed, and she stubbornly ignored the way her heart was about to explode. If she paused to think on that, not only would this stop, but she'd terrify herself so much that she would hightail it out of the unit. So she let herself go. Her thoughts could go fuck themselves. Tonight, all she wanted to do was _feel_.

And what she felt was Elliot, against her stomach, insistent and slowly grinding his way as close to her as physically possible. Heat shot straight through to her core to the point where she almost came right there in the kitchen, just from knowing he was like that for _her_. His mouth slid over her to worship her jaw as she gasped for air and held onto his shoulders for dear life because her knees sure as well weren't doing a particularly good job at keeping her vertical.

She was so focused on his lips on her neck that she didn't feel how he was pushing her until the wall met her back. And then Elliot stopped being so reverent.

She felt the second his lips started pushing to taste her. He shoved his leg between hers and propped her against the wall so that he could finally let his hands roam her skin. One of them found her breast underneath the sweatshirt—her bra was sitting in the drier with the rest of her clothes—and she arched into him, grinding into his leg and pushing her breast further into his hand. "Fuck, Elliot," she moaned.

A guttural vibration rose from her partner's chest and right into the spot on her neck he'd been so fixated on—right above the cut Gitano'd dealt her. His hand squeezed and Olivia's eyes rolled into the back of her head. "Touch me, Liv," he growled.

She couldn't have been more ready to oblige, her hands releasing his shoulders to work furiously on his buttons. His lips returned to hers, and she felt the material crunch in her hands as she lost herself in his mouth. His hips drove into hers, one hand tracing her hipbone peeking out from underneath the sweatpants and the other massaging, torturing her breast. She tried to be careful with his buttons, she really did. But the second he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, she tugged out of reflex, sending the last two buttons tumbling to the floor.

Her hands were all over him then, tracing every scar, every pucker and dip in his skin. Heat radiated from him and straight into her. He was so solid and real that she broke his kiss so that she could dip down and do a little worshipping of her own on his collarbone. His muscles shifted and tensed under her fingers, and anything she did on his body he responded in kind on hers. But it wasn't enough again. She was like the worst kind of addict. The one taste wasn't enough. She needed more. She needed all of it.

Leaning back, she reached for the hem of her sweatshirt and locked gazes with Elliot. His panting mirrored hers and his hands froze on her body. "Please, Liv," he rasped, want dripping from every syllable. "I need to see you."

She did as he asked, and they were both lost.

**xoxoxo**

Raindrops pattered against the window into Elliot's bedroom. Olivia blinked drowsily in the scattered moonlight that hit her face. A glance at the digital clock on the nightstand told her she'd officially spent the last two hours trying to understand how she ended up with Elliot's arm strewn contentedly across her stomach. She stared out the window and wondered if she would _ever_ get used to the absurdly pleasant pressure of Elliot holding onto her in his sleep.

Just the simple fact that he was making sure he was always touching her, even in his sleep, made her heart, her stomach, and about five other organs leap and melt and flip so much that she was almost nauseous from the magnitude of it all.

The man beside her, breathing slowly and evenly into his pillow, was Elliot. Stabler. _Elliot _Stabler. Her partner. Her undeniably alive and warm partner. The panic that had come at the thought of him leaving her sight was gone the second his sinful mouth had lowered to her breast. She'd been outside of her own body, feeling all the overwhelmingly amazing things he was doing to her but unable to really process that their need for each other could have massive consequences.

The cold air of the apartment pebbled her skin, and without a second thought she burrowed into her partner's side for his body heat.

It was that absentminded movement that sent her stumbling from the bed. She nearly twisted an ankle in the sheets in her hurry, but somehow Elliot stayed fast asleep. A frown broke out on his face when his hand dropped onto the now vacant mattress.

What had she been _thinking_?

Tears clouded her vision for the hundredth time that day as she all but ran out of his bedroom. As quietly as she could, she yanked her clothes out of the drier and set to pulling them on as fast as humanly possible.

They'd _already _fucked up a case because they were too close to each other—a kid _died_ because they couldn't picture being without each other without wanting to scream. What the _hell_ was going through her mind that she thought sleeping with her partner was the solution to their complicated relationship?

Images assaulted her brain while she snapped the straps of her bra in place in the middle of Elliot fucking Stabler's hallway. The smug face that lit up Elliot's blue eyes when he made her squeal like a girl half her age. The stormy swirl that darkened those irises to deep indigo when she grabbed his ass and pulled him so close that if they hadn't still been wearing pants he would have been deep inside her. The small crescent-shaped indentations that decorated his back thanks to her. The bone-shaking intensity in his entire being as they crashed together again and again, his eyes on fire as they locked onto hers when he finally came.

Her sweater felt too tight and constricting when she pulled it on, but she suspected that had little to do with the fabric and everything to do with the fact that she could barely breathe. She'd felt so…so _high_ when she and Elliot were tearing into each other with reckless abandon. She hadn't been so aware of her body and senses in her entire life, and the thought of any other sort of existence where Elliot wasn't touching her now seemed like a drab, dull comparison to _real_ living.

Her jeans were stiff. As she jumped up and down to get them to sit right on her hips, a soft sob fell past her lips. If they kept making decisions like they did with Gitano and Ryan Clifford, if they kept down the path they were clearly headed towards, more innocent people would die so that they could satisfy their selfish, irrational need for each other. She couldn't let herself get so comfortable and cozy in his presence that she needed him for something as simple as warmth. Too much comfort, and she'd one day find herself without him and without any ability to cope.

Her jacket was last, and as she shrugged it on and slipped her feet into the shoes by the door, she was shaking again. She leaned her forehead on the wood of the door and let her hand rest on the doorknob for a moment. A moment to remember and file away the worst and best night of her life before she gathered the strength to turn the knob.

"I'm sorry, Elliot."

**A/N: I PROMISE IT'S NOT THE END I PROMISE. I've got it planned as like a three- or four-chapter arc, and I sincerely apologize if the M portion of this wasn't all that great. I've never written M before, and it's really, really difficult! But anyway, please tell me what you think! **


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